


for I stumbled at your doorstep

by mollivanders



Category: Lizzie Bennet Diaries
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-16
Updated: 2012-11-16
Packaged: 2017-11-18 18:43:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,063
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/564200
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mollivanders/pseuds/mollivanders
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Caroline: True love? That's an illusion.</p><p>+</p><p>Caroline and Bing are twelve when their father files for divorce; they never learn the details. Bing goes to his room and cries for two days straight while Caroline sits quietly in the study staring at the cover of her parent’s wedding album.</p>
            </blockquote>





	for I stumbled at your doorstep

**Author's Note:**

> **Title: for I stumbled at your doorstep**  
>  Fandom: Lizzie Bennet Diaries  
> Rating: G  
> Characters: Caroline, Bing, Darcy, Caroline/Darcy  
> Author's Note: Spoilers through Episode 64 and Caroline Lee centric. Word Count - 1,061  
> Disclaimer: I don't own the show or the characters.

**Caroline: True love? That's an illusion.**

+

Caroline and Bing are twelve when their father files for divorce; they never learn the details. Bing goes to his room and cries for two days straight while Caroline sits quietly in the study staring at the cover of her parents' wedding album.

“I don’t understand,” she says quietly when her mother comes in. “I thought you loved daddy.”

“I did,” her mother replies. “I do.”

But the wedding album goes in the fire anyway.

+

Caroline is older by Bing by six minutes and somehow, this makes all the difference. They split their weekends and holidays between their parents and she finds Bing determined to pretend this is an agreeable outcome. He chatters pleasantly with their new stepmother and makes their mother smile back at home and Caroline crosses her arms, leaning back in her chair to observe them all.

“Sit up straight,” her father tells her and Caroline sniffs – puts on a pretty smile and hates them all in secret.

Hates every one of them, but Bing.

+

College is easier – they are together and far from home and holidays are shared less and less, with new children in the picture and Caroline and Bing as the castaways. Not so, Bing insists, but Caroline knows.

She is, after all, the one who’s been paying attention.

(“You’re welcome here anytime,” her stepmother writes in an email.)

But Brown is decent enough and she terrifies the president of the swankiest fraternity on campus into pledging Bing when there are no spots left. “You won’t regret this,” she tells him, and when he dares to look her up and down she scoffs and turns on her heel. There are some things real ladies will not deign to acknowledge, after all.

That’s when she first sees him, in the midst of her exit. He is in a corner, arms crossed and clearly superior to the other pledges. He is watching her watch him.

 _He’ll do_ , she thinks, though for what she is not yet sure.

Weeks pass and Caroline finds herself attached to Darcy and Bing, Bing and Darcy. Bing makes so many friends – it is always so easy for him – but Darcy remains the best, the closest. She supposes this has to do with breeding, and wealth, and taste, and overlooks the whispers she hears about Darcy’s family. It is nobody’s business, after all.

She has started to believe, however, that she has crossed the divide. Caroline has heard the gossip, that the straight-laced William Darcy (heir to a media empire!) is exclusive to Caroline Lee, queen bee. That she is the Rebecca to his Maximillian de Winter.

She does not correct them.

(There is, after all, nothing to correct.)

And if there are girls here and there – girls she does not understand, girls who press themselves against Darcy and beg him to dance – well, they never last.

+

Darcy does not drink, and he does not drink around Georgiana but it is late. Late enough, at least, she thinks. Bing is already sitting on the floor waxing philosophically about what the harm principle _really_ means and what doctor could want to harm anyone when Caroline wanders over to the ornate liquor cabinet and brushes her fingers against its engraved doors. A stray thought slips through her mind – that all this could be hers.

(And yet, a shiver runs through her body.)

“I wonder what’s in here,” she asks rhetorically and feels more than hears Darcy step next to her.

“It’s very old,” he says, and from the corner of her eye she spots it; a need to be young and reckless.

“Not for long,” she replies, tugging at the door and when Darcy doesn’t stop her, she pulls the first tumbler she touches off the shelf and grabs three dusty glasses.

“After you,” Caroline says, bold mischief in her eyes and she can tell. It’s not lost on Darcy.

He’s unsteady on his feet when he kisses her. His lips are dry against hers and when she tentatively presses them open, she feels his hand go to her ass and pull her closer. Her head is spinning and she wonders if this is what everyone meant when they talked about _love_ when he suddenly pulls back, eyes closed and his skin clammy.

“I think I’m going to be sick,” he manages to say before darting down the hall.

(Needless to say, they never speak of this again.)

+

Caroline graduates with honors and Bing graduates with his Harvard acceptance letter in his pocket and Darcy graduates with nobody but Georgiana there to see him.

There is the awkward stumbling of college friends – well, goodbye – keep in touch – see you this summer – and Caroline is suddenly frightened. She has never been frightened before.

(She has watched too long, and done too little.)

Maybe this will be good for her, she decides. Time apart. She’s young and rich and beautiful, and for the first time Caroline considers that since the world is her oyster, she might want to taste it. After all, what is so special about William Darcy?

And yet, two years later, she finds herself following Bing to Los Angeles with a raw taste in her mouth. Fashion, she tells her brother, and a modeling career, because who could argue otherwise?

When she spots Darcy at the airport, her instincts whisper to her again. Yes, he’ll do, she thinks.

The only trouble is, _for what_ has changed so much since then, and Caroline has stopped watching, so observing, so carefully.

Even queen bees need to practice.

+

Jane Bennet is a sweet girl, she decides, but her taste in fashion is hardly forward thinking. Mrs. Bennet is a horror, and the youngest girl (Lydia?) had to be pulled away from a questionable looking guest who could barely walk. And Lizzie Bennet? Caroline appraises her and thoughtfully crosses her arms.

Decent enough, she thinks, and forgets her a moment later. Bing is coming over with Darcy, bearing drinks. Bing and Darcy, she thinks. Darcy and Bing.

Bing and Darcy (and Caroline).

She takes a glass of champagne from her brother and when she smiles at Darcy, he nods back, clearly wishing he were a thousand miles away. He actually seems a thousand miles away, lost in thought, but Darcy – he is never lost.

“So what did you think of Lizzie?” Bing asks.

_Finis_


End file.
